14201

Geek Speak / Re: How can artificial general intelligence systems be tested?

« on: 14/09/2013 18:07:35 »

Consciousness is the experiencing of feelings (qualia), including feelings of understanding and feelings of awareness.

In that case there is no way of knowing whether an entity possesses it without being that entity. Any actor can lie convincingly about the feelings of a wholly fictional character, so a smiley computer could give a perfectly valid reason for you to believe that it had some feelings about something. This is a dangerous definition as you can use it to justify the concept of untermensch - anyone whose expression of feelings differs from yours, or can be dismissed (without proof being necessary) as a lie. It is very close to the Catholic translation of Genesis in which, to justify bear-baiting,  only humans were ascribed a soul, despite all Hebrew versions giving all animals a nefesh.

14202

Just Chat! / Re: Punning is hard(ly) work! Groaning aloud here?

« on: 14/09/2013 17:16:01 »

Just a minute, I'll measure it.............

A Gesundheit is 8"

The maximum height of a Gesunder, of course

14203

New Theories / Re: Cellular Space rather than Dark Matter?

« on: 14/09/2013 13:14:40 »

Neat idea but what "environment" is it pushing against? And what drives the replication? It's potentially a neat conceptual model of an inherently expanding system but I don't see  any testable predictions coming from it.

14204

Just Chat! / Re: Is this idea good, to put poison to food?

« on: 14/09/2013 10:09:00 »

Just keeping it "clean", i.e preventing foreign material entering after collection, doesn't get rid of the endogenous bacteria that can make you sick - bovine tuberculosis being the one most people care about.

Fecal contamination is interesting. There's plenty of evidence that variant CJD is transmitted through feces rather than meat, which would explain the anomalous incidence of CJD among vegetarians who work with cattle. 
   

14205

Geek Speak / Re: How can artificial general intelligence systems be tested?

« on: 14/09/2013 10:00:48 »

It's important to define all the abstractions you want to demonstrate in your definition of intelligence. Otherwise you are asking an athlete to run a thingy in several seconds, and only defining thingy and several in retrospect. 

We have plenty of machines that are capable of making computed (i.e. conscious) decisions based on neural programming from multiple inputs, and/or majority polling to minimise errors from faulty sensors. Most untended machines have "subconscious" reflex actions.

Consider a security system as previously used on the border between East and West Germany. A trip wire or light beam sensor fired a gun along the top of the fence: reflex action. Now add a fog sensor, as used in automatic weather stations, and a polling circuit that disables the light beam sensor if there is rolling fog - hard computed conscious action. You can add any level of sophistication you like: minimum target radar to distinguish between birds and humans, selfdefence to prevent anyone disabling the machine, coded entry to allow an authorised technician to service it.... Then you can either hard program the machine or, if you want it to mimic human response, use a neural learning program with fuzzy inputs to learn the sort of conditions under which you would fire the gun. 

It is important not to confuse a created machine with an evolved one. Evolution is not 100% optimal in a fixed environment (you carry a lot of DNA baggage that you never use - but wouldn't it be nice to have an adjustable spanner on a third arm?), whereas creation cannot respond to a changing environment (we stopped using bolts on this production line and use Philips screws instead - your third arm is redundant). We generally build machines for 100% optimisation, not adaptation to the unknown.         

14206

Just Chat! / Re: Is this idea good, to put poison to food?

« on: 14/09/2013 01:36:31 »

There's detectable arsenic in some wines, and radium in brazil nuts. Lord only knows what is in eggs: the rules say that an egg is a natural product therefore safe, regardless of what you fed to the chicken.

1 in 4 UK residents die from cancer, because thanks to food hygeine and a few other things, we don't die from anything much else.

Two things can kill you through diet: too much of what you like, or not enough of what you need. I'd go for the first option every tme. 

14207

Geek Speak / Re: How can artificial general intelligence systems be tested?

« on: 14/09/2013 01:25:48 »

consciousness

Would you care to offer a definition of this word?

I think we can distinguish conscious and subconscious responses in the sense of calculated versus reflex actions, but the abstraction of consciousness seems to float around without adding to the discussion. 

14208

Technology / Re: Discuss: British Science Festival 2013: Self-Healing Concrete

« on: 13/09/2013 15:43:28 »

I've just demolished part of an old farm building. The last thing I want is for the damn thing to reconstruct itself!

Meanwhile I have a (blockbuster?) screenplay for sale: "Terminator Shed - the Pigsty Returns"

14209

Geek Speak / Re: artificial general intelligence

« on: 13/09/2013 15:34:06 »

I've always considered intelligence to be either constructive laziness or the ability to surprise another animal. We don't see much evidence in normal linear computing systems because their responses are necessarily predictable: playing chess at an expert level depends more on not making mistakes than on amazing the opposition with brilliant originality. But a simple neural network incorporating fuzzy logic can indeed surprise its teachers by recognising significance under noise, or dismissing insignificant relationships as meaningless coincidence.

"Minimising wasted energy" is an aspect of "constructive laziness". Robot dancing is a good example: it's interesting to compare western ballet with traditional Chinese dance. Western steps, forms and sequences are always complete, usually ending with a pose or an exit on a bar line in the music (and some applause, if done well) whereas eastern forms flow from one movement to the next with no stops and starts. 

14210

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: Time Dilation Question

« on: 13/09/2013 15:18:23 »

Fair enough alancalverd, so what happens if you make the return journey back to Earth?

Use the same analysis. We leave Andromeda at time t=0 when we have just observed an event that took place on earth 50 years previously. After one year and a day we are at a point where we observe events that took place 49 years previously. That's the "blue shift".   

Now how do we know how fast the car was travelling? Our experimenter on earth will have told us the length of the test track, and will transmit a signal every second. To make it simple, let's say the car travels 100m in 100s. So we receive 100 time pulses, after which we see that the car has travelled 100m. The effect of the blue shift has indeed been to increase the frequency with which we perceive the time signals c ompared with our clock, but whilst the car may appear to have been travelling faster than 100m/s by our clock, it hasn't done so by his clock - and that is the one we use to measure speed.

14211

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: Which one of these sentences best depicts the 'Principle of Least Action'?

« on: 13/09/2013 15:02:55 »

There is no underlying philosophical principle. Philosophy is a human construct, not a natural phenomenon.

3 is true of a classical, closed, isolated, adiabatic system. The other statements are nonsense.

Evolution is an emergent property of active biological systems, which are themselves a small subset of chemical systems, which are a particularisation of physics at the molecular level. The word cannot be generalised to the whole of physics. 

14212

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: Time Dilation Question

« on: 13/09/2013 00:30:24 »

Suppose you were travelling away from earth at "very close" to c. Say it takes you a year and a second to travel one light year. Then when you had reached 1 light year distant and looked back, you would see events that occured one second after you left, and after 2 light years' travel, events that occured a second later. So you wouldn't see time compressed, but expanded as you travel. When you reach your destination, you will see earth events in their normal time sequence but delayed by 50 years. But the moment before you land, you will see events that took place 50 years and 50 seconds ago.

Time dilatation is indeed observable and a relativistic correction is applied to the clocks used for GPS. 

14213

New Theories / Re: What, on Earth, is The Human Consciousness?

« on: 12/09/2013 23:59:27 »

Some people have a pretty high opinion of homo sapiens. But every other species sees us only as food or the enemy. Now with several million other species out there, the majority opinion among God's creation is clearly against us. And when I encounter a pompous fool, I'm tempted to side with the majority.

14214

Physics, Astronomy & Cosmology / Re: is there an answer to whether Schrodinger's cat is dead yet

« on: 12/09/2013 21:18:56 »

is there an answer to whether Schrodinger's cat is dead yet?

Yes, or perhaps no, or maybe. You won't know until you open the box.

14215

Just Chat! / Re: Help me! : Is the sun our only source of energy???

« on: 12/09/2013 21:13:21 »

Well at least originating in an event that might result in the creation of a sun-like star somewhere, but our sun contains very little uranium (about 10^-10) compared with the earth, so it's reasonable to presume that ours didn't come from our sun.

14216

New Theories / Re: What, on Earth, is The Human Consciousness?

« on: 12/09/2013 21:08:45 »

Great minds discuss ideas
Average minds discuss events
Small minds discuss...people .

and morons rehash drivel whilst throwing insults at those trying to hold an intelligent discussion.

Though I'm not even sure about the precepts here. Anyone can come up with an idea, but it takes a great mind to suggest a critical experiment (i.e. a series of events) that might support or disprove the idea. And it takes a bold mind to question a popular authority. Which is why I value science way above philosophy, and have no time for the discussion of undefined abstractions. 

14217

Just Chat! / Re: The Free Market ?

« on: 12/09/2013 10:22:34 »

Probably we need a means test to prove that politicians and voters are willing to commit to economic reality before we allow them to vote or run for office.

I would go further than that and require that all politicians must have a significant, declared, active and paid outside occupation  as an employer, employee, or military reservist. Then even if (as now) they didn't represent the interests of their electoral  constituents, they would at least think twice before legislating or going to war. Career politicians are mere parasites, happy to sacrifice the lives and livelihoods of others for electoral advantage.

14218

Just Chat! / Re: Help me! : Is the sun our only source of energy???

« on: 12/09/2013 10:11:59 »

Not sure I follow that. Whilst the moon can certainly move water, the integrated pull vector over a day is zero, so anything with significant viscosity (and I think we can agree that the movement of tectonic plates is subject to a lot of viscous drag) won't move. Or at least if it did, all tectonic movement would be from east to west, which it ain't.

Have I missed a trick somewhere?

14219

Just Chat! / Re: Help me! : Is the sun our only source of energy???

« on: 12/09/2013 09:15:58 »

Nuclear fission requires heavy elements like uranium, which probably did not originate in the sun. It accounts for up to 40% of our electrical power in some countries, and is one of the sources of subterranean heat: not a "useful" source but without it, we'd need a lot more solar energy to keep the planet warm.

You would have to make a very clever argument to convince Icelanders that their abundant geothermal energy had anything to do with the sun. The movement of tectonic plates is a consequence of the internal heat of the earth's core.

14220

New Theories / Re: What, on Earth, is The Human Consciousness?

« on: 11/09/2013 23:38:35 »

Alas, the man has gone from curious eloquence to raving logorrhea. Time to move on.